Obama clueless on transit funding

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week told POLITICO that the House transportation bill is “the worst” measure he’s ever seen “during 35 years of public service.”

His problem? The legislation would eliminate the deficit-plagued Highway Trust Fund as a funding source for transit, walking and biking projects. Money for those projects would instead have to come out of the general fund.

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Transit and sustainability advocates are outraged. Don’t the bill’s supporters know how crucial these non-automobile means of travel are to cities?

Unfortunately, the bill is an all-too-predictable backlash against the White House and its apparent cluelessness about the difference between national transportation policy and urban transport policy.

When the Highway Trust Fund first ran a deficit in 2009, a National Academy of Sciences report called for a modest increase in the federal gas tax to replenish the fund. The administration’s response: a curt “no.”

Since then, Congress has tapped the general fund to close trust-fund shortfalls, restoking the ire of conservatives, who have long opposed using the federal fund to pay for local urban projects like transit. Some Democrats also now object to using the deficit-plagued general fund to backstop the Highway Trust Fund.

Enter the House bill, which would spend $260 billion over five years for road and bridge projects and other transportation programs. If the administration didn’t want to grapple with the political risk of raising gas tax revenues three years ago, it had to expect that the things that it favors but others don’t value — like transit — could get the ax. And if there’s one thing the House bill makes clear, it’s that not everyone shares the Obama administration’s urban transportation priorities.

No wonder. LaHood and President Barack Obama have been terrible ambassadors for their urban transportation visions. Unlike previous transportation secretaries, who discreetly played politics, LaHood has acted like a big-city mayor, not the head of a national agency. He has constantly advocated urban-friendly transport modes like mass transit.

LaHood, in one of his first moves, announced that highway spending should be “balanced” with spending on transit, walking and biking projects. In other words, take money from highway projects.